Icarus
by Robot from the future
Summary: It's the natural cycle. We get old, we go grey, we lose our hair, we die. Set in the future. Oneshot - pretty angsty I'm afraid


**Gosh I'm churning out the fics at the moment. I'm still working on The Accessory – it hasn't gone for another two year hiatus yet! But in the mean time I came up with this monstrosity.**

**Ok, so what I have to do first of all is apologise. I've taken a tiny throwaway comment that Naboo made in series 1 and spun it out into the most absolutely misery laden fic I think I've ever read. Seriously, if you're looking for some fluff or a happy ending, stop reading now!**

**Disclaimer - I do not own The Mighty Boosh**

* * *

The rain fell steadily throughout the afternoon, drumming on the lid of the coffin and pattering down on the umbrellas of the small crowd gathered around it.

A small figure stepped forward, shrouded in black robes, and threw a single banana down onto the mahogany lid.

Others crowded round him patting him on the shoulder, saying how sorry they were but all he could think was that he was alone now, really alone.

As the other mourners drifted away, Naboo moved to another nearby plot, feeling almost unbalanced by the absence of the familiar lumbering bulk by his side. All his friends were here now. Staring at the headstone, he felt tired, so tired. The rain dripped down his turban and into his eyes, mingling with his tears.

When he first came to earth, he could never have imagined all the adventures he would've had, the friends he would've made amongst the humans. He had come to earth with a purpose, with a duty but surely he had served his duty now – half a millennium, give or take a couple of years, was, at long last, enough. It was time to go and see a Xooberonian King about an amulet.

* * *

Vince had been first. When he'd got ill, it had shaken them all to the core. Vince had said in the past that colours could fade to black, but none of them had believed it, not really.

It had started off innocently enough – Naboo had noticed more cans of root booster in the bathroom bin than normal, Vince grumbling to Howard as they sat on the roof one night that light pollution was ruining the sky, he couldn't see the stars any more. Then one day he had fainted in the shop. He had tried to brush it off as something totally normal, that he was in his sixties and that sort of thing was to be expected but Howard went on and on at him to go to the doctors, and he did, and it was bad news. The big C. Terminal.

Everything happened very quickly after that. Or maybe it just seemed that way because every moment was so precious and they were slipping away so fast and every day he was a little bit worse.

Vince seemed to take it in his stride. At first Naboo was worried that he didn't really understand what was going on, he seemed so cheerful, so unphased. Then one day he caught sight of him when he thought no one else was watching – Howard was on one of his rare departures from Vince's side, to heat him up some soup – and it was like he became another person for a second. A smaller, greyer, older, tired person. It was like they'd all been blinded by his sunshine. Naboo realised that the sicker Vince got, the more he imagined him like he was young, all big hair and skin tight clothes until he was almost surprised when he didn't bound up to him with a cheeky, 'alright'. But now he could see the real Vince and horror peeled his lips back from his teeth. Then Vince saw Naboo standing there in the doorway and pasted on a smile and it was like it had never happened but Naboo was sure then that Vince knew.

He didn't know how much effort it cost Vince to keep the show up, for Howard's benefit he presumed, but he guessed it must have been great. It made the usually relaxed Naboo want to hit him, then hit Howard for letting him do it. They'd spent their whole lives putting up a front for each other, papering over the cracks, hiding their true feelings. It was painfully obvious to everyone within a five mile radius that those two were made for each other, were crazy about each other and yet neither of them ever said anything and the years slipped by until now, they had so little time left and they were still dancing round each other in the same not quite friends, not quite anything else routine.

Howard rose to every challenge without complaint, helping Vince to do his hair, reminding him to take his medication, then when things got worse, feeding, washing and dressing him. He would have carried him if Bollo had given him the chance. He did everything except the one thing Naboo wanted him to do which was grow a pair and tell him how he felt.

Then one day Vince beckoned Naboo over to where he was lying on the sofa, in the cracked, hoarse whisper that was all he could muster. Naboo flinched as he got nearer at his papery skin, his sunken yellowed eyes, his dry lips and then flinched again at what Vince asked him. He went over and stood next to Howard, speaking in hushed tones,

"Vince has asked me for some youth juice,"

"Well give him some then can't you Naboo, Naboolio? I know you said we couldn't have any more but come on"

"Howard, I'd give him my left nut if i had one and I thought it would help but this isn't age that's doing this. He'll still be dying, he'll just look prettier doing it,"

Howard rolled his eyes in a way that indicated that this was exactly what Vince wanted and Naboo hurried off to get it. He had looked to Bollo, almost expecting the long suffering phrase to be issued from his lips but he just sat silent, like Howard he was too far gone to refuse Vince anything he wanted.

The effect was instant and shocking, Vince Noir, rock and roll star was back. He ruffled his hair experimentally, patted his cheeks and his face split into a wide smile.

"Howard," he called him closer, his hand outstretched. Howard strode over, and knelt down beside him, wincing as his septuagenarian's knees creaked.

"Howard," Vince smiled, "I love you, you know that, don't you,"

"Oh no. No, don't you start that, chewy teeth,"

"Oh come on Howard, you never let me say it to you. Look, I'm not even laughing or anything, I mean it,"

"No no no Sir, I'm not getting into this. Not now,"

"Yes now, I've waited too long to tell you. Why not now?"

"It's too soon. Why don't you tell me something else instead. Why don't you finally tell me what happened when you fell asleep in the jungle?"

"I don't think you're ready for that yet. You know it don't you, there's always been something between us,"

"The deep, powerful, molten sexual tension?" Howard looked unsure.

"Yes!" Vince hissed, grabbing his hand. Howard's eyes widened but he didn't warn Vince off in his usual manner.

"You know, I love you too," they just gazed at each other like they'd learned how to turn shit into gold.

"Howard?"

"Yes, little man?"

"Is my hair ok?"

"As good as it's ever been,"

Vince sighed, smiling, "Howard?

"Yes?"

"We've had a good time, haven't we? I mean, I'm sorry I never said nothin' before,"

"I've spent every day of my life with the man I love and every night with him by my side. It's been the best,"

"Yeah, I thought so too. Howard?" Howard's eyes rolled indulgently,

"What now?"

"C'mere,"

For the first time in over forty years, since that time on the roof, their lips met. Naboo felt uncomfortable, like he was intruding on something so intimate that the moment should be wrapped up in tissue paper and kept a secret forever.

At first, Naboo thought Vince was pulling away as his head dropped back on the sofa. But then he saw the light leave those big blue eyes and he knew Vince was gone.

He had half expected Howard to break into one of his dramatic gestures – a clenched fist, a wailed 'noooo' but it was like his audience was gone and there was no reason to perform any more. He just sat very still, holding Vince's hand, until the undertakers came to take the body away.

The funeral had been a massive affair. There was a procession through Camden, with their prince's coffin carried through the streets. Howard had refused to go, saying that he didn't know that Vince, the Shoreditch Vampire, the Vince of the Camden dolly birds - it wasn't his Vince. Naboo and Bollo had stood on the street, waving their glittery flags in the crowd for a while before they realised he was right and headed home to sit with him and drink whiskey with the curtains closed. They'd seen Lance Dior there. He'd been devastated, like his reason for living was gone, which, Naboo supposed, it was.

After Vince died, Naboo had expected Howard to grow somehow, assuming all the years that he'd known him that he had been overshadowed by Vince, which was what made him so small and frustrated, but the opposite was true. He retreated into himself, barely speaking from one day to the next unless spoken to. He had a couple of friends – Lester Corncrake (Jnr – they had met at the Senior's funeral and hit it off after Lester Corncrake Jnr had got over the initial surprise of the friend his dad had described as being an old codger was only 32). Also, later in life Bob Fossil had become something of a friend to Howard too, their balding heads bowed together as they sat around telling stories about the good old days at the zoo. But even Fossil coming over, trying to talk to him about Vincey, wasn't enough to break through the veil that had fallen over him.

The only time he seemed alive would be when things happened like the TV would announce that they were replaying Colobus the Crab on the oldies channel, or a Gary Numan song would come on the radio and Howard's eyes would light up for a second and Naboo could almost see him turning to Vince before he remembered, and the shutters came back down. Naboo heard him crying in the night through the thin walls of the flat but during the day these brief glimpses were the only flashes of emotion Naboo ever saw in Howard.

When he was younger he'd had so many ambitions – to be a jazz musician, to be an author, to be a photographer – but after that last time, when he went off with Juurgen, that was the end of Howard's big ideas. It had been too close, too real, the parting. For both of them. From that day, Vince's dreams of fame and glamour seemed to shrink, Howard's crazy dreams seemed to revolve around staying closer to home, and neither of them complained about working in the shop any more as long as they could spend all day every day together. Forty long years, standing behind that counter, just the two of them, day in, day out.

After Vince was gone, Howard pottered around, opened the shop everyday as usual, checked the stock, even though he hadn't actually sold anything since 2025. Without Vince there to make the sales, Naboo was glad that the shop was only a front for his and Bollo's extensive drug and potion dealing business. Then late one morning, about six months later, as Bollo and Naboo staggered home from Dianne's retirement from the board of shamen party, they saw the shop wasn't open and Naboo could feel it in the air, the bad Juju. It didn't take away the shock though when he opened the door to Howard and Vince's bedroom and Howard was still in his narrow single bed, cuddled up to Vince's old green zoo jacket, with a peaceful expression on his face, his tiny eyes shut forever.

It was his heart, the doctors said. They called it a heart attack but Naboo knew it was a broken heart, that Howard couldn't be apart from Vince another minute. His second funeral was better than his first - Bollo had even found that music he wanted. Howard had made dramatic statements as he had got older about wanting his ashes scattered on the Yorkshire moors but in the end, they buried his ashes in the same plot with Vince's, together at last.

Naboo didn't know how to hold so much emotion in such a small body – grief, regrets, but mainly anger at that pair of ballbags, for wasting their lives, too scared to tell each other how they felt. There were times when he had ached to step in, to say something, to bang their heads together, but he always held back, held in the same suspension that they were.

It was too much for poor Bollo too. Precious Vince's death had turned him grey in a matter of days. Naboo had to take him off potions duty because he kept crying into the cauldron and spoiling the brew. As the weeks rolled by, the flat seemed too big with just the two of them in it. Naboo felt like they were both waiting for something, some sign. Then one day, it came,

"Naboo, Bollo want to resign. Bollo not want to be familiar any more,"

Bollo had said this to him in jest many times over the years. Despite the prickling of unease at the back of his neck, Naboo decided to treat this time much the same, and barely looked up from the pipe he was filling.

"Is this because I sent you to dig up those hemlock roots in the middle of the night?"

Bollo lumbered down next to Naboo on the sofa, "Bollo serious - Bollo see his friends come and go – Chinko, Precious Vince, Harold,"

"Howard, you bellend" Naboo elbowed him as they both sniggered at the old joke Bollo used to pull to wind Howard up. He hadn't done it since Vince had been ill. They laughed together for a few moments before Naboo's face became serious,

"You sure about this Bollo?"

Bollo nodded slowly, "Bollo had a good life but Bollo old now, even with the fountain of youth water Naboo puts in his inhaler when he thinks Bollo not looking. Bollo old in here," he thumped his chest with his huge fist.

How could Naboo blame him? When he himself had stopped drinking the water from the fountain of youth after Howard died, unable to accept any longer that he could go on forever as he was, untouched by the passing of time while it felled his friends around him like trees in a forest. How could Naboo refuse him? Just because the agony was screaming inside his chest and bubbling up inside him like a mento dropped in a bottle of coke? As Naboo's familiar, Bollo would live as long as Naboo drew breath, unless he renounced him. Then he would revert to his natural life, which as Bollo's time had been up some fifty years ago, would be short.

"Who's going to do all my stuff for me?" his tone was neutral, his face, although now showing lines on his brow and the corners of his eyes, was as blank as ever. This was as near to begging him to change his mind as Naboo allowed himself.

"You can always upgrade to a better model now, if you want,"

"Nah, you're alright. Bollo, just one thing before I do though, will you do something for me?" he turned to Bollo, looking grave,

"Bollo Naboo's faithful servant. Bollo do anything for Naboo,"

"Will you finally put that submarine up in the loft – it's been hanging around in the spare room where you got tired and dumped it, for the last forty years,"

"Bollo thinks Naboo can piss off,"

"Fine," Naboo sighed, "I renounce you as my -"

"Wait!" Bollo's dark eyes were anxious, "Will Bollo go to monkey hell?"

"It's alright, Vince said they got you a reprieve from the ape of death when they went down there, it's heaven all the way for you mate. Shall I carry on? Or I think Peacock Dreams might be on in a minute?"

Bollo nodded, "Do it,"

"I renounce you as my familiar," he waved his arms wearily.

Bollo breathed out a wheezy sigh of relief and his head lolled back.

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the ticking of the clock.

Eventually Bollo spoke up,

"This going to take long?"

Naboo just shrugged as he eyed the pipe on the table in front of them, "may as well finish that off while we wait,"

Bollo started it first, humming the old song lightly, until Naboo picked up the tune in his reedy singing voice,

"We've wandered down life's many paths, we've had some times, we've had some laughs. We've smoked a bong or two, my friend. And now that we have reached the end, it's time to roll up a last -"

Bollo took a pull on the pipe before drawing short, coughing drily. He leaned back on the sofa, his breathing shallow, and reached over and took Naboo's hand,

"I got a good feeling about this," and with a small smile on his face, Bollo closed his eyes and was still.

* * *

As Naboo appeared back in the flat, after finally handing over guardianship of the amulet to an exultant Banoo, the silence, the noise of nothing but dust moving around, was deafening. It exhausted him, he could feel it sapping the energy out of his limbs even as he moved the short distance from his room to the kitchen sink to pour the last of his supplies of water from the fountain of youth down the sink.

When the knock on the door came it seemed huge, like something out of one of those Juurgen Whateverhisnamewas films that Howard used to watch. Naboo opened it with trepidation but was not surprised when Dennis swept magisterially into the room.

Taking in his quiet surroundings, the empty bottles by the sink, Naboo's tired expression and the streaks of grey now painting the smaller man's hair, he attempted to speak with a gentler tone than he was used to,

"Naboo, the board of Shamen has been worried about you. Well, all apart from Kurt, he's having another one of his episodes,"

Naboo nodded, only half listening

"Is there anything we can do for you, you could go and stay at the Shamans' Lodge for a bit? Mrs Harrison wanted to bring you a casserole – she's a surprisingly accomplished cook for someone who is essentially a balloon,"

"Actually there is something," Naboo paused, trying to think of how to phrase his request in order to meet the least resistance, "could you sort all of this stuff out, the shop, the flat. You know, if anything happens to me," he hadn't been able to touch any of Vince and Howard's stuff, and he couldn't bear to even open the door to Bollo's room.

"What are you going to do?"

"I thought I might transform myself into a mighty hawk," he hadn't really thought what he was going to do, other than the need to be gone, but as soon as he said it, this idea appealed to him. The feeling of the warm gulf stream under his wings, seeing the sparkling sea from miles above, before a brief, glorious flight up up up and into the sun.

"Ah yes, very good, have a fly around, see the world, clear your head, have a little holiday," Dennis's old bluster was back but Naboo noted he couldn't meet his eyes.

"Right," Naboo agreed, taking a step forward to usher Dennis towards the door. As they stood in the doorway, Dennis held out his hand to shake Naboo's. Naboo couldn't help but notice the slight tremor, the pale blue liver spots that revealed the signs of aging in the Head Shaman. Even him, Naboo thought sadly, the shadowy arm of death was reaching out even to him.

"Goodbye, old friend," Dennis said solemnly, and then he was gone.

Alone again at last. Naboo had appreciated Dennis's thoughtfulness but once he had made up his mind, every second in his presence had dragged like an hour. While he still had his human hands, he opened the window, before bowing his head in concentration. After a few seconds, his entire body started to glow and vibrate until, in a flash of bright light, Naboo was no more and all was left was an empty pile of robes. The mighty hawk spread his wings, flew out the window and off out into the blue sky.

Down on the street below, his strange pale eyes blurred by tears, Dennis watched the bird ascend.

* * *

**I warned you! Imagine that they are all in heaven together wearing ponchos and dancing around if it helps.**

**Reviews bring them all back to life :-)**


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